Prior cartridges for storing sterile needles commonly include means for frictionally retaining the needles so that after the cartridges are opened the exposed hubs of the needles must be grasped to pull the needles from the cartridges. To avoid contamination of such a needle, or of the gloved hand used for extracting it, extreme care must be taken to make certain that the non-sterile surfaces of the cartridge cap do not contact the needle hub as the cartridge is opened, and that the sterile glove does not contact the non-sterile surfaces of the cartridge as the needle is grasped and removed. It is apparent that the consequences of inadvertently contaminating a spinal needle or other type of hypodermic needle during such removal could be extremely serious.
Loose packaging of needles in non-rigid or semi-rigid containers such as bubble packs is also known, but while such packs permit the needles to be spilled rather than pulled from their containers, they fail to insure avoidance of contamination problems. Thus, a danger exists that contaminating contact may inadvertently occur as the closure strip which seals the back of the bubble chamber is peeled away to expose the needle for removal.
Prior packages in which needles are loosely held also tend to present other serious problems. For example, the tip of a needle loosely supported in a flexible wrapper might engage the package wall and either puncture that wall or scrape material from it. In the latter event, even if the needle tip should remain free of particulate contamination, dulling or other damage to that tip might nevertheless occur.
References indicating the state of the prior art are U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,021,942, 3,101,841, 2,799,272, 2,854,976, 3,525,264, 3,149,717, 3,329,146, 3,333,682 and 3,370,588.